Meet Motorola’s Ara, the First Modular Smartphone

In an attempt to revolutionize smartphones even further, Motorola (MMI[1]) has been working on an open hardware ecosystem called Ara.

The company’s Advanced Technology and Projects group is developing Ara which is an open hardware platform that users can use to customize their smartphones. The aim is for users to create highly-modular phones based on what the consumers want and Motorola hopes to achieve this by creating a more direct connection between users, developers and smartphones.

Project Ara phones come with an exoskeleton which has the basic building blocks for a cell phone. Beyond this module, users can customize their phones by adding a unique keyboard, an additional battery and other features to suit their preferences.

Motorola is working alongside Phonebloks, a modular phone platform that works for the entire world started by Dave Hakkens. The company is inviting developers to help out by creating modules for the Ara platform and an alpha release of Module Developer’s Kit is expected to come out sometime this winter.